I'm building a new gaming PC for my kids and myself.  I've been using Macs for 15+ years and haven't built or used a new PC since WinXP was released, so I've been reading up on new components.  I think I've got a good base system spec'd out on PC Part Picker with the following components:

- Core i5-7600K
- MSI Z170A Pro motherboard
- 16GB of DDR4000
- 500W power supply.

However, I'm still lost in the world of GPU's.  The kids mostly play WoW, Lego and Minecraft games, so nothing really intensive from a graphics rendering standpoint.  However, I'd like to get involved with some of the newer FPS and role-playing games since my old XBox 360 is getting long in the tooth.  For reference I've been looking at boards in the $150-$250 range.  Mainly GTX1060/1050 and Radeon 470/480.

My question mainly comes down to price vs performance.  Since I see that overclocking is possible with many GPU boards, are there less-expensive boards that can be overclocked to match the performance of an unclocked higher-end board?  I realize I'll need to address the related cooling/power needs, of course.  Water cooling will probably be in the mix, just because I think it's cool (ha, I made a pun) and the liquid cooled systems seem to be less noisy from what I've read.  Then again, with my tinnitus, maybe the extra white noise would be nice.  :)

Thanks for any input/advice.  Things have come a long way since I built that 1ghz Pentium III with 512MB RAM, 40GB HDD and Invidia GForce 256.  But it was a beast that kicked ass on Max Payne, Diablo II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and IL2 Sturmovik!

Get a GTX 1060, many of the non-reference cards come out of the box with a small factory overclock. Overclocking an older card is not going to get you better performance per dollar, especially when you factor in the cost of the aftermarket cooling needed. It's more than just higher GPU and memory clocks you get with the newer cards.

Overclocking doesn't get you terribly far with GPUs. Higher models don't work at higher frequencies, but rather have many more cores, and sometimes more memory bandwidth.

Thanks for the info.  The GTX1060-6 models seem like good performers for the price, assuming the youtube videos I've seen are accurate.  Are there big differences between brands with the same chipset?  Most seem to be about the same price according to PC Parts Picker....give or take $20.

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Another question while I'm here...

The monitor I plan to use is a Viewsonic VA2455.  It's a 1080P (1920x1080) monitor that I've had for a couple of years and used it with one of my old Mac Mini servers.  I have no plans to upgrade it with this build since I'm trying to keep the cost down a bit for this "toy" and it's a great monitor for our needs.  Trying to keep the total price of this build around $1000 or less.  

From what I'm learning this weekend as I read about components, it appears I may be shopping for a supercar to drive in a school zone. Am I right to assume that I'd be wasting a lot of the performance on a high-end GPU if I'm not asking it to render graphics at 1440P/4K resolutions?  Are the "high-end" 1080P cards simply the flagships of a previous generation?

Get a 1070. You're already going with high end components. Don't go low on a video card. The Gigabyte 1070.

 

The differences are generally just that some are made for overclocking or are somewhat OC'd from the factory, and in cooling.  Sometimes, depending on the chipset, you might see one card having more memory and/or more memory bandwidth than another, but that seems to be slowly going away.



As far as 1080P goes, it's still awfully nice to have all of the settings set to "ultra", so pick a card that will rock games at a solid 60fps at 1080p, and be happy with it.



I dunno.  My GTX 970 plays my games with the settings at "ultra", and a GTX 1060 is faster than my 970.  Unless OP also buys a monitor with a higher resolution and/or sync rate, the extra $100 for a GTX1070 may not actually give him any benefit.

I am not into the specs (I support researchers ) but if you really use a GPU get the liquid cooling options for it. I cannot tell you how many issues we have had with gpu machines that have been solved by proper cooling. (they use GPU's for computational purposes with up to 4 in a machine. but even with 1 you can overheat if you really use it.)

Monitor is fine.  Upgrade to a 4k someday when you feel like it.  No need to worry about it now.

1060 is fine for what you need.  Overclocking is really not necessary.

I have a 1060 3GB on my 1440 monitor and it's amazing.

It's a great performer for the price- very nice value.